Taco Bell Talking LionsSuper Bowl XLI Commercial

This year there must have been some traveling CGI salesman who convinced all the advertisers that talking animals was going to be the “in” thing during the Super Bowl.

I already took a look at Bud Light’s talking gorillas. They are rejoined by several other enchanted animals, first up are the Taco Bell lions.

For a Taco Bell commercial, this is a little above average. For commercials in general, it’s below average. (But it’s Taco Bell, who cares.

The effects on the lions, similar to the CGI Bud Light gorillas, are a little more sophisticated than the little wiggling mouths that used to adorn all the special effects talking beasties. You have some better mouth / eye movements, and cohesive facial reactions. Despite all this the lions, like the gorillas, come off soulless and fake. I agree with Gore Verbinski, director of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, who preaches that “CGI” is not a verb. Computer graphics isn’t a magic wand that will make a production look awesome, or replace the need for brick-and-mortar special effects.

Blockbuster Mouse ClickingSuper Bowl XLI Commercial

That said, I’d much rather see the entire animal stylized in CGI, as we see in this commercial for Blockbusters. Some hamsters or something are clicking on a mouse and torturing it to death. It might actually die off screen, I don’t know, I had the sound turned down.

This spot was much funnier and engaging to me than the gorillas or lions, and the animals aren’t presented as completely photo-realistic. The ability to completely control the characters and breathe life into them makes up for the “hey that’s a real lion talking” wow factor.

Comcast Talking TurtlesSuper Bowl XLI Commercial

Normally I’d advocate using puppetry over CGI wherever possible. Until I saw this stinker from the current Comcast campaign.

The talking turtles kind of look like petrified stool samples, and I found myself generally annoyed by this spot. Maybe by the time I saw it I was so fed up with talking animals this one just didn’t stand a chance.

I think they spent four dollars making these puppets. And part of their budget went into buying a three-dollar cup of Starbucks coffee. They must have made one puppet and split-screened it to save money. Anyway, whatever, I am so over the talking turtles. They are dead to me.